Patients in hospitals generally wear pajamas or gowns when they are in their rooms. Before and after surgery patients typically need to be connected to a number of devices such as e.g. drainage channels, catheters and the like, as well as to electronic monitoring devices requiring arrangement of sensors and routing of cables.
There are known hospital gowns configured to facilitate arrangement of such and similar devices. U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,187 and US 2010/024150 e.g. disclose hospital gowns comprising inside and outside pockets, as well as inside and outside hangers allowing to fit and accommodate various medical appliances such as e.g. telemetry transmitters with sensors attached to the patient, catheter units and drainage channels.
The international publication WO 2005/102084 describes a gown for hospital use provided with a removable element allowing to access the patient's body, in particular at the chest area, without being forced to undress the patient completely.
During surgery patients are instead almost naked and covered with sterile sheets that are typically arranged so as to define an access to a surgical site. A surgical site may be e.g. a portion of the abdomen in the case of laparoscopic surgery, the chest, a flank and the like.
Still during surgery monitoring sensors are typically placed on the patient's body in order to monitor his/her vital signs. This requires to arrange under the surgical sheets a number of cables that must be connected to respective monitoring devices located in an operating room. Such sensors may be e.g. blood pressure sensors, electrocardiology (ECG) electrodes, body temperature sensors and the like.
Surgical gowns allowing to protect privacy of the patients while not hindering surgery operations have been envisioned. Similarly to hospital gowns, also surgical gowns comprise pockets, hangers and openings allowing to fit and accommodate various medical appliances. The Chinese utility model CN 203168090 e.g. discloses a patient surgical gown which comprises a coat and trousers. The gown is provided with a number of openings and ports facilitating access to e.g. the abdominal cavity, chest drainage or intubation, endotracheal intubation and the like.
It is also known that during surgery a patient generally needs to be restrained to a surgical table so as to be kept in the correct position especially when the surgical table is inclined so as to exploit gravity as a means to move a patient's organs into a desired and more suitable position for the intervention. This is generally achieved by way of restraining means such as straps, fasteners and the like connected or connectable to the surgical table. The arrangement of cables and lines of monitoring devices must take into account the position of restraining means and possible maneuvers of the surgical table.
Hence, the preparation of patients for surgery is a time consuming and rather complex procedure.
Moreover, the patient must be protected against injuries connected with extreme, e.g. vertical, positions a surgical table may assume. Multiple anchoring points are generally preferred, because they allow to distribute contact pressures over a larger surface while decreasing the decubitus on focal points. However, the straps and fasteners presently employed in surgical tables do not always allow to achieve a proper pressure distribution of contact pressures.
Emergency devices such as e.g. defibrillators must also be present in an operating room. In order to use these emergency devices surgical sheets and/or patient monitoring devices must be partially or completely removed. Since emergency procedures must be carried out very quickly, preparation and arrangement of sterile sheets and monitoring devices have to take into account also emergency situations, which makes preparation procedures even more complex and time consuming.
Hence, there is an increased need for improving patient handling and monitoring during surgery.